The blood pooled anywhere there was a depression in the ground; it was flowing too fast for the hard-packed dirt in the compound to absorb it all. There would be time for that later, when the wounded no longer overflowed out of pre-OP. But for now, it collected beneath the stretchers and ran in rivulets along the ground.
The four choppers and two busses had been hours ago, perhaps enough hours ago to count as days. He wasn't quite sure anymore; he had lost count somewhere between his twelfth amputation and his second arterial graph. But he knew that there had been uncountable soldiers on his table since then. Their faces had blurred together until his was no longer sure of those, but he knew their wounds. He knew their wounds all too intimately.
"Radar," he called, stretching his back a little as he waited for another patient to be brought to him.
"You called, colonel?" Radar said, quickly hurrying to his side, but keeping his gaze carefully averted from the patients. The boy had seen enough blood and guts to last him for his entire life; he knew that Radar didn't want to see any more than he had to. No one did, really.
"What'd you find out from HQ?" he asked. The shelling had continued since before that first call to surgery. It was difficult to gauge the distance from inside the noisy operating room, but, if anything, he would guess that it had come nearer.
"Our soldiers have been pulling back toward the 8063rd since yesterday," Radar reported. "They can't hold the line. Canadians are moving in from somewhere on our left, but they haven't made it all the way up yet."
He sighed. "They haven't made it all the way up yet?" he repeated back to the clerk. "What is Sam hill do they mean by that?" He knew what they meant. It meant that the dike was cracking. The Canadians were desperately trying to plug the gap, but the North Koreans were leaking through anyway. It was a leak that had the potential to become a flood, and they were all sitting in the way.
"Well, sir," Radar started.
"Get back on the phone and find out when the Canadians are supposed to be in place and how far they're expecting the front to move back this way," he ordered as Klinger slid another wounded soldier in front of him.
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The shelling had definitely moved closer during the few hours that he had slept. The flow of wounded hadn't ceased, even though the troops were retreating back toward another unit. Unable to continue any longer, the surgeons and the nurses had been forced to start working in shifts. There were only so many consecutive hours that they could pull shrapnel from soldiers and stitch them back together.
He staggered over to the mess tent, his muscles painfully reminding him that he was no longer as young as he used to be. Plates of sandwiches were lined up, waiting for anyone with the energy to walk over and take one. It had been impractical to serve real meals. No one had the time to sit down and eat them. And those that did have the time were too badly hurt.
A few of the tables had been converted into makeshift stations where personnel could donate blood. Most of them had long since given all they were allowed. Some had given more. But every once in a while they would manage to stop a chopper pilot for long enough to sit him down, give him a cup of lukewarm coffee, and drain some of the vital fluid from him. One of those pilots was sitting there now, chewing on something that may have been a sandwich, or, if you believed Hawkeye, the cup of coffee.
He waved briefly as he surveyed the sandwich selection. They were all equally unappetising and he would have given almost anything for one of Mildred's chicken sandwiches on her fresh-baked bread. He even would have settled for one of the corned beef numbers that he had gotten used to during the last wars. But he wasn't overly sure what was before him, and he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to know.
He picked out a few and started on his way back to the operating room. The wounded no longer spilled out into the compound; they were finally all contained within Pre-OP. But they had come out the other end and temporary wards had been set up in the Officer's Club, the VIP tent, and they had just been moving in to convert Margaret's tent when he had gone to bed. He would have to volunteer his tent next. It was easier to move himself than to try and re-accommodate the others.
"Are you awake, sir?" Radar asked, coming up beside him.
He started, not having noticed the diminutive clerk. "The last time I checked. What was the latest from HQ?"
"The front's moved back almost four miles in our direction," Radar said, checking his clipboard for the numbers. "The American right flank gave way about ten minutes ago, but we haven't been put on alert yet." A shell burst noisily above them and Radar flinched. "How far away do you think those shells are?"
He thought for a moment, listening to the next batch of incoming explosives. "Far enough away that we don't have to worry about them yet," he said definitively a moment later. They were far enough off that they wouldn't do any damage. But they were getting closer.
Mentally, he began running scenarios. They were overflowing with wounded that they didn't have a hope of transferring. There were no vehicles to spare to send the nurses away, and with the more still to be treated and everyone running on almost no sleep, it would be hard to do send them anyway. The front was moving ever closer toward them.
"What's the nearest unit to us?"
"Fighting troops or another MASH?" Radar asked, flipping pages on his clipboard.
He hesitated for a moment. "Medical," he decided.
"The nearest MASH is the 4081st, but HQ mentioned something about there maybe being a Canadian unit between us," Radar rattled off quickly. "I tried finding out more, but the lines heading nearer to the front are under heavy shellfire. Sparky said that he'd keep trying for me."
"Nearer to the front?" he questioned, sitting up and starting to pull on his boots. He wasn't going to be doing any more sleeping for a while, that much had quickly become apparent.
Radar shrugged. "That's all that I could get out of their colonel before the line went dead." Another round of shells whistled in, still coming progressively closer.
His mind instantly shifted to a higher gear. This was a situation that called for a cool, level head, and his mind was racing as fast as it ever had. "Get HQ on the horn and get them to divert any more incoming casualties to the 4081st. If we need to bug out, we can't do it so long as there are still wounded coming in," he ordered, watching as Radar's eyes went as round as his glasses.
"And keep trying to get that Canadian unit," he added as the clerk scurried from the room. He knew that if that the medical unit was going to retreat, they'd likely be headed right in their direction, their own wounded in tow as best they could manage.
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"Four-oh silk," he demanded, squinting at the bloody mess that had once been a healthy boy. The nurse hesitated. "Silk," he repeated, trying not to get irritated. The nurse was as exhausted as he was.
She pressed the needle into his hand. "Sorry, sir," she apologized. "But you'd better make that last because we're running short."
"Margaret," he called, scanning the OR for the head nurse. She would know what they had left for supplies.
"I think she's asleep," BJ responded. "Either that or she's keeping an eye on Post-OP."
He couldn't help but be irritated at the way that things were shaping up. The front was still inching its way back toward them, the shells were doing a fair imitation of a creeping barrage in their direction, they didn't seem to be getting close to the end of the wounded, and the Canadian unit was still incommunicado. Not only that, but now they were running out of supplies, and Radar had just informed him that the 4081st was having radio problems.
"Anyone know when the last time someone took inventory was?" he asked, trying not to bark the question out. He only received silence. "For the love of Pete," he exclaimed, not able to stifle it.
"Is there something that I can do to help, colonel?" Father Mulcahy asked, stepping uncertainly toward him.
"You can use those connections of yours with the man upstairs," he replied. "And while you're doing that, see if you can locate our missing head nurse."
The priest nodded, blue eyes solemn above his white mask. "If she's asleep should I wake her?"
He had to sigh. They needed a supply inventory now, but Margaret had been on her feet just as long as any of the surgeons. "No," he had to answer after a second to think. "If she's asleep, you'd better let her sleep." If the situation continued the way that it was, no one would have time to sleep later. And as he had found out far too often, in too many other wars, people didn't make good decisions when they were pushed too far.
He'd be hard-pressed to say exactly how far too far was, but he'd be willing to hazard a good guess that they were all likely approaching that limit.